Then he returned to his seat and for some time remained wrapped in thought.  These moments of introspection, of deep self-questioning, had become more and more frequent.  He had made in the past few months a new and most interesting acquaintance—­himself.  All the years of his over-hurried, over-cultivated, ambitious life he had delved into the psychology of others.  It had been his pride to divine motives, to dissect personalities, to classify and sort the brains and natures of men.  Now for the first time he had turned the scalpel upon himself.  He was amazed, he was shocked, almost frightened.  He could not hide from himself, he was no longer blind, the searchlight of his own analysis was inexorably focused on his own sins and shortcomings—­his powers misused, his strength misdirected, his weaknesses indulged, because his strength protected them.  In these hours of what he had grown to grimly call his “stock taking,” he had become aware of a new and all-important group of men.  Where before he had reckoned values solely by capacities of brain and hand, he found now a new factor—­the capacity of heart.  Ideals that heretofore had borne to his mind the stamp of weakness, now showed themselves as real bulwarks of character.  The men who had fallen by the wayside in the advance of his pitiless march to power, were no longer, to his eyes, types of the unfit, to be thrust aside.  Some were men, indeed, who knew their own souls, and would not barter them.

In his mind a vast readjustment had taken place.  Words had become bodied, the unseen was becoming the visible—­Responsibility, Honesty, Fairness, Truth! they had all been words to conjure with—­for use in political speeches, in interviews—­because they seemed to exercise an occult influence upon the gullible public.  “Law,” “Peace,” “Order,” “The Greatest Good to the Greatest Number,” he had used them all as an Indian medicine-man shakes bone rattles, and waves a cow’s tail before the tribe, laughing behind his gaping mask at the servile acceptance of his prophecies.  One and all these Cunjar Gods he had believed to be only bits of shell and plaited rope, had come to life—­they were gods, real presences, real powers.  He had invoked them only to deceive others—­and, behold! he it was who knew not the truth.

The high tower of his heaven-grasping ambitions seemed suddenly insecure and founded upon shifting sands.  The incense the sycophant world burned before him became a stench in his nostrils.  The fetishes he had tossed to the crowd now faced him as real gods; and they were not to be blinded with dust, nor bought with gold.  The specious and tortured verbiage of twisted law never for one moment deceived the open ears of Justice, even though it tied her hands, and her voice was the voice of condemnation.  Honor—­he had sold it.  Faith—­he had not kept it.  Truth—­he had distorted to fit whatever garb he had chosen for her to wear.  And, withal, he had hailed himself conqueror; had placed